Sunday, March 04, 2007

Housing Slump Continues

Recently released numbers for the last quarter of last year indicated that overall the recent housing slump in the United States is still continuing, with a very negligible growth of 1.1%. Overall for the year of 2006 there was a national growth of 6%. Growth often fell faster in the suburbs than in the cities with the largest decline being 5.3%. Growth was much larger in western states such as Utah and Colorado with some cities seeing growth around 20% compared to Michigan and Indiana where their cities saw declines of up to 5%. Most experts in the field are unsure about when the market will see a turn-around. Some say it could be anywhere from 1-3 years. This is being attributed to interest rate increases, inflated prices, and credit problems. People looking to buy homes are even being advised to hold off if at all possible until prices do come down some.

1 comment:

SHANE B said...

There are no doubts that a surplus of housing has happened in this case. What do we do when there is surplus? We lower the price. In China, the cost of renting a house is being boosted higher and higher recent years. However people are still fighting at full split to get a house. I was surprised to see the price of housing to be so cheap in US. But one thing for sure is that there are less demand for housing than in China, therefore the price has no choices but to fall to meet the equilibrium price.